Chawkbazar fire: 46 bodies handed over

Authorities have handed over bodies of 46 victims of the devastating Chawkbazar fire to their families, district administration has said.

So far, 21 bodies are yet to be handed over, Md Rajibul Islam, an assistant deputy commissioner of Dhaka, told The Daily Star today.

Those bodies will be handed over after DNA matching, he said.

Abu Saleh Mohammad Ferdous, Dhaka’s deputy commissioner, confirmed the update and told The Daily Star that his office will handover the remaining bodies if the families can identify them. “Otherwise, we will go for DNA matching.”

INFO CENTRE OPENED AT DMCH

An information centre has been opened at Dhaka Medical College Hospital to convey updated information about the victims of Chawkbazar fire.

The centre is being jointly run by Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, district administration, and Fire Service and Civil Defence.

It is from this centre the unidentified corpses will be handed over after DNA matching, Shahjadi Sultana, the information officer of fire service, told The Daily Star.

The hotline to the information centre is-01737084914.

WHAT HAPPENED AT CHAWKBAZAR?

A devastating fire broke out at Old Dhaka’s Chawkbazar area around 10:40pm on February 20, leaving 67 people dead at the spot.

Autopsies found all the victims were burned alive.

The victims are mostly pedestrians, people travelling on rickshaws and cars, residents of the buildings as well as owners and staffers of the shops and warehouses at the buildings.

The Chawkbazar fire, which sparked from a chemical warehouse, is the second deadliest chemical-fuelled fire in the country after the 2010 Nimtoli incident.